Springfield chamber promotes Bodenhausen to executive VP

In the new position, Bodenhausen is involved in many of the same areas as before – just from a different perspective.

“I’ll still continue to be involved in local government issues and take the lead in the chamber’s management of local issues, working with our local issues task force,” Bodenhausen said.

This year, two local issues – power supply and the expansion of the Springfield-Branson Regional Airport – are at the forefront.

“We don’t have a position on either of these issues yet, but we are monitoring them because we feel like they’re really key things for the future economic development of the community,” he said.

While power supply is an issue that goes before the local issues task force, Bodenhausen said the chamber’s transportation committee is more hands-on in terms of airport expansion issues.

Bodenhausen noted that the chamber supported Vote Yes for Secure Energy, a campaign that asked voters to approve a $515 million bond issue during the Aug. 3, 2004, election.

The bond money would have been used to build Southwest II, a coal-fired power plant, but the issue was voted down at the polls. Bodenhausen said that the chamber is hopeful that eventually there will be a proposal that the community will support. Bodenhausen also assumes oversight of issues in community development/special events and membership, supervision that used to be the responsibility of chamber President Jim Anderson.

“It gives me some flexibility that I’ve not had, some freedom, so to speak, to do those things that I need to be doing,” Anderson said. “It will give Brad even further opportunity to provide leadership to our organization and, frankly, to the community.”

Chamber China

As executive vice president, Bodenhausen will be working to identify international opportunities for the chamber and its members, particularly through the Chamber China program.

An upcoming trade mission in April will be the first chamber-coordinated visit to that country, following an initial visit last fall.

More than 20 locals will visit China in April. The list of trip participants has not been finalized, but it will include officials from Southwest Missouri State University, which already has built relationships in several Chinese cities, including Dalian, where SMSU has a branch campus.

“On this trip, we’re going to be looking at building relationships between businesspeople here in Springfield and entrepreneurs in China,” Bodenhausen said. “We’ll be in three cities. We’ll have formal meetings and social functions in two cities where SMS has a real strong presence – Zhengzhou and Dalian.”

During the initial fall visit, he added, local representatives signed letters of cooperation with the Dalian Chamber of Commerce and a similar organization, the Business and Trade Association, in Zhengzhou.

“This (trade mission) is part of continuing that relationship, having our delegation to go there and talk about specific business opportunities that might emerge between the two countries and the communities,” Bodenhausen said. “At some point in the future, we would hope to host delegations from both of those communities in China here.”

Stateside

Bodenhausen also continues his work in coordinating the chamber’s annual Community Leadership Visit. Local delegates have visited several cities, including Charlotte, N.C., and Little Rock, Ark.

Chamber officials are searching for a destination for the 2005 Community Leadership Visit. “We try to match (the cities) as much as possible to issues that are currently going on in Springfield,” he said. “We need to first figure out what issues we want to focus on, then find a chamber in a community somewhere else in the country that has had experience – hopefully successful – in dealing with some of those issues.” He expects the choice to be made by the end of January or early February.

Shifting responsibilities

Sandy Howard, who joined the chamber’s staff in 2004 as public affairs manager, has taken on many of the functions of Bodenhausen’s previous position.

“Sandy is taking direct responsibility for our state and federal governmental relations program,” Bodenhausen said. “Those are things that I had done in the past ... .”

Other new chamber personnel are Claire Faucett, who joined the chamber as communications coordinator in November, and Katie Logan, who joined the chamber’s communications and public affairs department Dec. 9 as interim editor of Springfield Spirit, the chamber’s monthly newspaper.

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